


Anam Cara, El Mayarah

by iamthegeneralissimo



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Coming of Age, F/F, Sort of an origin story, in which i will attempt to write more than 5k words for once
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:55:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27877197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamthegeneralissimo/pseuds/iamthegeneralissimo
Summary: Kara Danvers buckles under the weight of her people’s legacy and struggles to come to terms with her new home—and the role everyone wants her to play. Lena Luthor fleshes out the spaces her family’s left bare.
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor, Samantha "Sam" Arias/Alex Danvers
Comments: 10
Kudos: 43





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ‘... I shall tell them this story against the background of the country I grew up in and along the river I know and do not love. For I have discovered that there are other rivers.’ —The East of Eden Letters: Journal of a Novel, J. Steinbeck

Jeremiah could tell Eliza had a hard time explaining the situation—how after his only research trip that year he would be coming home to a second daughter.

He was posted in a place so remote the only chance Eliza had of preparing him was when she picked him up from the airport. I have a surprise, she breathed, after they’d let go of each other and heaved his kit into the trunk of the car. He knew from the gleam in her eyes that it was big news. Exactly how momentous was more difficult to convey.

Jeremiah had always wanted a son. He wanted a son because he was a simple man with even simpler needs. He would have a son if only to balance out the equation: Alexandra for Eliza and a boy for him. For wasn’t it every father’s secret desire to be the catalyst for every formative moment they themselves were deprived of? To be the steward of firsts? That first football thrown, that first set of handlebars held steady, those first scrapes and bruises patched up and kissed better.

He wanted a son to make up for how scared he was of his firstborn, who spent those first few days out of the womb too quietly for an infant and with flecks of wisdom coloring her irises. An old soul trapped in a little person’s body—that’s who his Alexandra was.

Now he was to be a father to a second child who strangely enough possessed Eliza’s hair without an ounce of the woman’s blood coursing through her veins. Or human blood for that matter. The child was literal mana from the heavens. What to do? How to be? He and Eliza were to spend nights grappling with these questions not knowing the child herself could hear every word through the walls separating their bedrooms.

He wanted a son. A son was surely the easier burden. How was he to protect a daughter without being so overbearing as to discourage independence? How was he to mold this child who came to them already shaped by circumstances beyond their reckoning? How could he, Jeremiah Danvers, learned yet unwise, imperfect and forever striving spouse, ever admit out loud that he wasn’t equipped for this kind of parenting? Lab work came easy. Child-rearing was the real job.

Yet when he stepped out of the car—crippled with jet lag and hoisting a duffle bag full of souvenirs that Alexandra would now just have to share—and was taken by the hand by the woman who was his very foundation, he knew. He knew from the moment he saw her standing in the driveway in a pair of faded jeans and a threadbare sweater that Alexandra had outgrown years before. He knew how fierce his love would be for her and how it would make up for his childhood of not knowing what that was like. He knew, but would deny the way any parent ostensibly does when asked which of their offspring they favored most, that she would be his. And he knew that Alexandra, who was fast approaching seventeen and was an old soul now trapped within a surly teenager’s body, and whose irises were still flecked with that startling wisdom, would understand.

Jeremiah knew the moment he took the girl into his arms and said ‘Welcome home, Kara’ that he meant every word of it.

* * *

There is something about turning thirty that makes Lena Luthor breathe faster. It isn’t the clip of her run or the length of her stride as she sprints through National City’s Botanic Gardens that forces her to take in deep lungfuls of air—it’s a good old-fashioned existential crisis, brisk and beautiful fall morning be damned for Lena Luthor can’t shake the sense that somehow, something, somewhere is about to go terribly wrong. That one day she’ll wake up to find her world upended and everything she’s worked so hard to achieve—the truncated bachelor’s degree, the doctorate programme and the new research team she’s spearheading at LuthorCorp—will have disappeared. As though she never existed in the first place or was never plucked mid-thought from that quaint County Wicklow orphanage, run by those stern nuns whose faith they never quite managed to impart on her, wondering if her number would ever come up.

She’s far too logical to be superstitious but she knows something is about to happen. Something momentous. Something which, if she’s lucky, might finally give her life meaning.

She can _feel_ it.

And sometimes she wonders whether leaving everything behind willingly would stop this spectre from haunting her. The notion’s started to interrupt the most mundane of moments like when she’s signing off on one of the dozens of forms which grace her desk every day or when she’s inspecting a carton of eggs at the grocery. There’s no predicting when or what will halt her in her tracks. She fantasizes about walking away from the titles, the family’s legacy, their fortune. Some days she wants to dot the i’s and cross the t’s one last time before excusing herself in that voice she uses when she wants people to really lean in and listen to her, or just drop that carton of eggs, yolk and albumen splashing against her designer heels and walk away.

There’s never been a Luthor that the world didn’t wish some form of suffering on. She wonders, perhaps, if she is destined for a fall from grace. It’s what the world expects after all.

Lena slows to a light jog and pauses by the nearest park bench to stretch her hamstrings and roll her neck until she hears a series of satisfying pops. It’s well past daybreak and a steady stream of morning enthusiasts have arrived intent on making the most of the good weather. She observes a couple walking their dog which does little to make her feel better because she’s reminded of the empty apartment waiting for her. She bends to adjust her laces and thumbs through her workout playlist—something less angst-inducing, perhaps. There’s a trio of cyclists and a running club wearing sleek matching outfits. A groundskeeper in a utilitarian olive jumpsuit, raking leaves and kneeling periodically to check points on the ground.

From a safe enough distance Lena watches the woman press her glasses up the bridge of her nose as she casts her gaze upon her surroundings. Her hair reminds Lena of cornsilk, sheaves of vivid green husks enveloping soft, pale kernels.

* * *

'Oh, and something arrived for you last night,’ Jess caps off the daily rundown just as Lena is about to enter her cubicle, fresh-faced and primed for another twelve-hour workday.

There must have been some mistake, Lena thought. Her name she recognized, as well as the sender’s address, but the label indicating what was inside the box? Impossible. Yet, she frowned, entirely likely and bound to have arrived any time between the present moment and the one decades ago in which she was whisked away from the nuns who attempted to impart their faith on a child who had little room else for anything but anger and sorrow. Whose clothes sagged on a frame starved for love and affection.

No candle shone bright enough to chase the shadows from the hollow of her cheekbones then, and the vacuous rituals and accompanying chants performed day in and day out nearly drove her mad. Yet she was sorry to see them fade in the rear window of the town car that ferried her over those verdant hills and away from the cloister.

There must have been some mistake, Lena thinks. She stands rooted to the spot by the bright orange label. _Cremated remains_ , it informed her, as though anything else could have come in the night shot forth from that address in a country she’d left behind long ago. But forgotten? No. Not even a change in surname or being slotted into a brood of blood relatives she didn’t even know existed—for in her dreams after the incident it was a different kind of family, exhibiting a different kind of love, speaking to her in a different kind of measured tone—could erase the fact that she was of that land and of those people. Hardy, weather-beaten and proud.

But she knew there was no mistake as she cut through the tape with a blade. The case inside, nested in bubble wrap, was as discrete as the packaging itself was loud: a matte black box containing, precisely as the label proclaimed, what was left of her mother.


	2. Chapter 2

Lena’s always been one for observation. She can be obsessive with detail, keenly and unhealthily so. And when she observes Lex withdraw from the world it leaves her paralyzed. She’s quiet when she watches him spend more and more time at Lillian’s side, and she stays quiet when he stops visiting her apartment with armfuls of takeout and admonishing looks at the work she’s spread out on her dining table. Contracts, meeting minutes, blueprints. Schematics that tame the roil within her mind. He’d laugh softly, ‘Tools down, Lena. You shouldn’t ever forget to take care of yourself.’  
Back then Lex had different laughs he employed to suit any given occasion. There was the boisterous, hearty kind dispensed openly at functions which greased palms and got cheques written; the unbridled delight elicited by a new invention, a successful experiment. But he’d save for Lena the truest, most bare expression of his joy: a quiet chuckle of pride at a younger sibling upending primogeniture.  
She says nothing even as she withers without his attention and when he stops being there to extricate her from her own head. The cold, hard clarity which shines from his eyes as they drift further and further apart when they were once inseparable scares her.   
She misses him.  
But she says nothing of it and it’s an unbearable sort of tension, the kind which when it snaps takes no prisoners. Years later in its resolution, once the dust settles and he is scuppered away to a penitentiary for crimes against humanity, she takes to the company’s helm and rebrands it. L-Corp, she calls it, because she knows it won’t fool anyone but she feels the need to try anyway. The spectre of her brother’s presence remains so in that corner office that she builds an entirely new division at National City and moves there to escape it.  
Her thoughts drift constantly to Lex’s gradual decline but what scares her isn’t his megalomania or Lillian’s enabling. She’s terrified of what might happen when her number comes up a second time: she’s scared of the person who might come out the other end. Her ambition, her competency—she’s afraid of eclipsing Lex at last.  
These are the thoughts she would share with her therapist, the one with whom she’s had a standing appointment once a month for the past three years. And which she’s attended exactly zero times since it was mandated of her.  
Jess has it penciled in her calendar as ‘Lunch with Ms. Arias’ because it’s pretty much the same thing.

* * *

_Kara Danvers hums as she rakes leaves into neat piles, grateful that the turn in seasons has made for cooler mornings. It’s brisk enough to make her look forward to the thermos of coffee in the passenger seat of the groundskeeper truck; her mouth waters when she remembers there’s sandwiches wrapped in wax paper too._   
_Being outdoors constantly makes it easy to like this new job compared to her old one which stuffed her into the city’s basement archives surrounded by musty stacks and dust motes. There was never enough room to move and she’d never liked tight spaces. What she does like is feeling the sun warm her face and being able to dig her fingers into cool earth, damp and dewy in the blessed mornings, just because she can. The loam teems with life between her fingers and she’s thankful for these small interludes in her day._   
_She hears the Saturday morning running club fly past her and the tread of bicycle wheels, sees the glistening of their spokes. A dog barks in the distance and she can feel its joy in the way it bounds forward, straining against its lead, and laps at its human companions._   
_Kara smiles and draws breath. She takes in the verdant oasis in the heart of her city, and one by one she hears people shuffle from under their sheets and out of their beds, stirring cream and sugar into coffee cups, and lock tumblers engaging as people step out of their homes and into the world._   
_There is peace enough to dull the monotone throb of loss and grief as she is reminded this world is not her own._

* * *

In the watery light, the air cool and crisp, waves lap against rocks which jut and make up part of the promenade. Lena nurses a glass of wine and moves the pasta on her plate around with her fork. She casts her eyes out onto the harbor, doused under the last of the sun’s soft, golden rays. She braces her arm against the railing and thinks about how this isn’t the first time she’s been greeted by a restaurant’s host with a solemn nod after she confirms the night will indeed be ‘a table for one’.  
The sympathetic clucking was a definite first though.  
She flirted with the idea of bringing something to work on while she ate but the look Jess shot her put a pin in it quick. Her assistant had called in a few favors to book Lena in partly for the degustation but mostly to set her up with the executive chef who’s started making eyes at her over the kitchen pass. Lena thumbs through her phone’s lockscreen and decides the gesture is worth some form of reward:

_I could probably skip dessert—she certainly counts as eye candy._

  
But she chooses, like all the other times Jess has tried to set her up, to do nothing. She doesn’t have the luxury or the time to see anyone. Her life is infinitely easier, simpler, carried out alone.  
The breeze, still cool and still crisp, makes the fine hairs on her arm stand on end but she shivers when her ears pick up a melody trickling in from the ether. The voice is feminine and accompanied by the soft press of a piano. 

  
_Oh all the money that e’er I spent_   
_I spent it in good company_   
_And all the harm that e’er I’ve done_   
_Alas, it was to none but me_   
_And all I’ve done for want of wit_   
_To memory now I can’t recall_   
_So fill to me the parting glass_   
_Good night and joy be with you all_

  
To hear the song now is to hear her mother’s lilt and cadence breathe life into every verse, to be thrust back into that fair country and amongst a people ruled by ancient kings with their ancient tongues, who yoked themselves to the twin burden of memory and dark sorrow. And how clearly Lena remembers now the afternoons scaling verdant hills, skinning her knees on great formations of shale and limestone. She remembers the spring thaw, how the freshet emptied itself into the estuary near their house brackish and cool despite the beating sun, and reflects on how a suggestion so casual could so quickly morph into great tragedy. How a single action could change the course of a life.  
She remembers all of it and of that silent procession: the priest, the nuns who never could impart their faith, and herself, all of seven years old.

  
_Of all the sweethearts that e'er I had_   
_Are sorry for my going away_   
_And all the comrades that e'er I had_   
_They wish me one more day to stay_   
_But should it fall unto my lot_   
_That I should rise and you should not_   
_Then I’ll gently rise and I’ll softly call_   
_Good night and joy be with you all_

  
As waves roll and crash on the rocks so too do these memories, previously kept at bay, wash over her. They were poor then. Poor, but not destitute. Her mother gilded every aspect of their lives and their house was never simply a structure with four walls and a sometimes-roof. It was a home.  
Lena doesn’t think she inherited that firmness of constitution, but she can’t say she inherited much of anything from her father except for his wealth.

  
_Good night and god be with you all._

* * *

Kara holds herself differently in the air, she knows, compared to Kal who pantomimes grace despite his bulk. He holds himself in the air in a way that asserts his belonging, suspended above the masses who adore him and worship even just the snap of his cape in the wind. It took her much longer than he did to bargain with the earth’s gravitational pull but she takes solace in the fact that she’s the more competent fighter. He said so himself.  
She hates it but she practices with Alex anyway. They drive into the desert east of National City until the asphalt gives way to crushed gravel and sand, until the yucca and cacti tower over jadeite succulents, and until the color bleeds from the rock and lichen into a sky whose colors defy categorization. They drive until they’ve flipped the ancient cassette thrice, the deck hungrily devouring and regurgitating its one meal.   
Alex makes her do drills until she’s exhausted and sprawled out on the bed of Eliza’s rusty old pickup. Until Kara thinks there isn’t enough inky black night to mask the pinpricks of light in the sky. She dunks her hand into the cooler and rummages through the ice for two beers, the tops of which she flicks off with both thumbs.  
'So how’s your girl?’  
Alex takes a deep pull from her bottle and grins. ‘She’s good.’ But it doesn’t quite meet her eyes and all at once Kara knows it won’t last. That Alex will continue to search for that elusive, scarce resource she denied ever needing in the first place. ‘Work is work,’ Alex shrugs at her own non sequitur and Kara knows that Alex knows the answer to the question she’s about to ask: ‘When are you coming?’  
Kara is aware she doesn’t need to work as hard as she does to pay her bills, not when all she has to do is sign the DEO contract she’s stashed away in her nightstand. She’d spent the better part of her early twenties poring over National City’s broadsheets, trawling through the river of shit that was the classifieds section. She’d exchanged money for her time and her effort, and sure she lived in a rent-controlled apartment east of downtown but it was rent all the same. She’d never really known quite what she was looking for but she knew what she didn’t want: another job that meant nothing, that made no difference to her life whatsoever. But they were the jobs she kept taking. Anything to delay the inevitable.   
'We’re just waiting for you Kara. As far as the DEO is concerned, you’re ready. You’ve earned the role.’  
Kara doesn’t say anything for a long time. Coyotes yowl in the distance but she can’t tell whether they’re far away or right next to them. Duty is Alex’s lifeblood, obligation as vital to her as oxygen. Kara buckles under the weight of her expectations.  
'I don’t think I am, Alex. I need more time.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of you may recognize the lyrics to ‘Parting Glass’, which apparently Ed Sheeran popularized a decade ago? I’ve always enjoyed—for any Crazy Ex Girlfriend fans!—Donna Lynne Champlin’s cover. https://youtu.be/ysP6AKDi8fU


	3. Chapter 3

There was nothing worse than a dull pencil. Lena’s office, the public one, was normally kept pristine by the building’s custodians, but her home office was another matter entirely. Graphing papers were strewn across every available surface, blueprints for various patents the R&D team were forever trying to push through, scale prototypes of components she dreamed of getting to a production line but for now took the form of plastic resins and delicate paper glued together at the seams. But there was never a shortage of needle-sharp pencils.  
This was how she found herself on the search for them in the bowels of the R&D department, floors below her office, on a Sunday morning. An open computer terminal distracts her and she ends up spending the rest of her day basking in the quiet hum of processors and centrifuges while working on a devkit. As always, she forgets to feed herself.  
The ringtone sounds like it's coming from the depths of the ocean. Lena cracks her left eye open as she fumbles for the device.   
'You need a vacation,' says a tinny but thoroughly adamant voice.  
'Jess?'  
'The cleaners called security after they found you asleep under your desk. They didn't know whether to wake you up or leave you so they called me. Go home, Lena.'  
'What time is it,' Lena mumbles.  
'Time to go home. I don't care that your surname takes up half the building.'Lena rubs at the carpet imprint on her cheek and starts, 'But the production schedule—‘  
‘—can be absolutely overseen by someone in your cadre of middle management. They're chomping at the bit for you to delegate this project. Have them call Singapore to accomodate any changes to the manufacturing schedule. Deputize someone.  
'But—'  
'Jesus Christ, woman. Do it, or I am going to set you up on another date.'  
Lena grimaces. Because the last one turned out so well. So Lena agrees, calls in sick the next day and doesn’t even try to work from home. After her run she stops by a newsstand a few streets away from her apartment. It’s brimming with dailies, magazines and assorted periodicals in neat stacks. The scent of coffee permeates the air and Lena thinks she likes the way the attendant’s light hair is cropped short. She wonders if she could ever pull off a similar look. Right now her hair’s the shortest it’s ever been, ending just above her shoulders in a not-quite bob, and it’s enough to make her feel self-conscious when she inspects her reflection in the morning. She wonders what it might feel like to run those bright strands through her fingers.  
Lena buys the National City Herald, The Daily Planet and the Star City Tribune, and a pastry to go with her coffee. She knows she can pick these papers up from the L-Corp lobby. She even has a subscription to all three major dailies on her tablet but it’s a small price to pay to see the woman’s smile up close, teeth all pearly white.  
It takes a while for the attendant to realize she has a customer and she offers up an apologetic grin, adjusting her scarf and her glasses. 'Sugar?’ She enquires as she fills a paper cup to the brim.  
'Oh, no. Black is fine.’ The woman nods and pops the lid on. She reaches for a pair of tongs and jabs at the pastries. ‘Any preference?’  
Lena purses her lips. ‘Which one’s your favorite?’  
The woman grins once again before picking from the display case.

* * *

Every child holds a deep fascination for at least one thing. Things that harm, that maim, that crystallize irrevocable change—burners on the hob, strangers on the street, a busy intersection, the top of a seesaw. It may be one thing, or it may be many.   
The lake by the house was hers. The way the sun glanced off its mirrored surface as it lapped gently at the rocky shore, the way the whole place smelled after a torrential downpour. So it surprised her how averse she was to plunging its depths as her mother flailed amongst the bracken. She found the water to be thin and cold around her pale ankles, drenching her socks and her shoes, and she was suddenly afraid of how icy it might be if she ventured any further. Would it be the kind of cold that seized all breath from one’s lungs? Or was it the conclusion that, at that point, there was nothing else she could do and no one in the immediate area to call for help, that might stop her heart? Was this the price she was to pay for wanting to touch something so cool and clear and unthreatening?  
If the waters were any murkier perhaps she would have hesitated or it might have at least stayed her mind. But it wasn’t. The sun was out and it was a day that should have been remembered only for how unremarkable it was. Ever since, she’d grown to be suspicious of such days.  
Give me overcast and gloomy, she thought to herself, and at least would she knew what to expect. (The sun’s rays and a crisp breeze demanded your attention, demanded that you rejoice in it, and she resented that.)  
Babies were preternaturally gifted swimmers, she’d read in a book somewhere, and perhaps her mother had simply lost this ability over time. Perhaps she could have, not so far removed from that stage in life herself, dove in and pulled them both to safety. _Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps._  
She never was to suppress that curiosity, however. Her mind proved as tensile as rubber band. She had excellent recall and absorbed facts like a sponge, approaching catechism classes with the same zest and zeal as she did chemistry, biology, trigonometry. She surrounded herself with books and followed the nuns solemnly, every word. She still didn’t _believe_ as they did but thought she convinced them otherwise. And so by the time she packed her trunk, boarded the chartered aircraft, had been driven by a gloved chauffeur to an estate with no discernible fence line for the family owned the county on which it sat, and come face to face with a slim young man seated at the base of an ornate staircase, she was still curious more than she was afraid.   
'I’m Alexander,’ the boy held his hand out to her and she’d lifted hers thinking he wanted to shake, but instead he reached for her knapsack and slung it on his shoulder. He spied the novel tucked under her arm and broke out into a grin. ‘Come on, your room’s next to mine.’  
She didn’t meet Lionel or Lillian until a week later and in the dining room she watched Alexander—‘Lex,’ insisted her new half-brother and also the closest thing she had to a friend in her whole short life; religious figures didn’t count, she figured—make his way over to his mother’s side and whisper something in her ear. He didn’t try to tiptoe and there was no need for Lillian to lean in; they were the same height. While Lillian’s face remained impassive, she knew Lionel was speaking to her, making his reassurances, but she couldn’t make out the specific words. He was probably welcoming her into her new home. But who were these people, really? The years since she moved to the estate made little to no difference on her understanding of who her new parents were. Lionel’s appearances were rare and infrequent. Lillian was slightly more present and yet ever dismissive of her attempts to fit in. But she was fed and clothed and made privy to a cache of wealth so astounding in its value that she could only blink in disbelief. Alexander just shrugged when they tapped into the safe in Lionel’s office, ‘I didn’t know either.’ She added, ‘And these are the ledgers we _can_ see.’  
He was her constant in the revolving door of tutors, extracurriculars and college prep courses. ‘We need to find someone who challenges you, who brings out the best of your abilities, not some _hack_ ,’ he spat one day. ‘None of these people are doing that so why should we pay them for the privilege?’  
'Why don’t you do it then,’ she argued back, ‘if you think they’re doing such a terrible job?’ She’d liked the most recent one, a young lawyer who coached her in pure math and had an abiding passion for zygomycota, and was sad when she watched his car wind its way down their gravel drive and away from the house. This was the third tutor in a month she’d gotten to know only to bid farewell to.  
And so began a punishing regime of lessons that neither of them admitted to enjoying out loud. They covered everything from theoretical physics to astronomy to biochemistry. Then Lionel had a series of strokes and Alexander underwent the grooming process necessary to take helm of the company, so he groomed Lena in turn. The lessons shifted in scope, but they were no less demanding of her time and effort, to cover political science and diplomacy and management, things that he’d been taught that were arguably more useful than the hard sciences. She naively wondered about this future they seem to have planned for her, that she should be learning all of the these things. How to read quarterly budgets and profit and loss statements, how to play the stock market like she played Chopin or Debussy with her eyes closed—as though they needed the extra cash—how to value a competitor’s assets and read financial publications in order to strike at the precise moment; a merger, an acquisition, a hostile takeover, it didn’t matter. What mattered was that she be able to take these actions as an extension of the family, as though they operated as a unit. They were the nucleus from which the rest of the company stemmed.   
It didn’t mean she particularly enjoyed the minutiae of running a multinational company. She still much preferred her lab, built out of one of the wings of the house at her request. Once, when she was much younger, Lionel brought back some experimental textiles from a firm in Morocco and she’d asked for some samples to play with. This became the impetus for building her lab; she asked to borrow her brother’s study in the interim. ‘Modifications,’ she’d told her father while running the fabric through her fingers. ‘Maybe synthesizing something similar to bring to market.’ He’d nodded approvingly for he was a man of few words, and which the multiple strokes reduced even further.  
She’d known Alexander would eventually join the small club of young multinational corporate leaders but she didn’t think he’d be _that_ young. Not even on the cusp of thirty, and already in command of the GDP of a small European country. (At least he bought her more time.) Over the transition period he gave her a hard drive full of their current employees’ resumes and told her to pick whoever she wanted for a research and development team—cutting edge, he’d insisted, that she’d spearhead—and that he’d another hard drive with potential hires. She thought she chose wisely, even if the collective qualifications made her head spin.

* * *

_She commences her undergraduate degree in the city and the apartment complex becomes her home for the next decade of her life._   
_Lena is aware it reeks of old money but she had Lex to take her mind off these details when they were younger. He grounded her and was conscious of the potential shock to her system, having come from what amounted to nothing in comparison. The wealth, he often reminded her, exacted a steep cost but it was theirs to do with what they wished._   
_The gentleman at the front desk stands to greet her with a bow and a clipped ‘Ms. Luthor’._   
_'I’ve told you a million times, Winston.’ Lena grumbles before depositing a coffee and a box of half-dozen donuts before him. ‘Enough with the bowing.’ She and Lex started doing it when they were younger, greeting the doorman with exaggerated obeisance because it made him less stern and they tallied his gruff smiles until his face became permanently fixed with it. If he’d developed a habit, then they were entirely to blame. There were no other children in the building to delight in after all._   
_Winston provided the kind of warmth their bodyguards, by virtue of their role, could not. He covered for them when their parents came looking, kept them abreast of the paparazzi’s movements outside and could be relied on for restaurant recommendations, whether they be the newest bistros or the humbler, family-owned establishments operating as the beating heart of the city’s older districts. The man also played a mean game of chess. Inevitable, given a world grandmaster was a former tenant._   
_'Half-bow, Ms. Luthor,’ Winston corrects as he reaches for the coffee and hands her a stack of mail. ‘I thought that’s what these bribes were for.’ He tells her that Mrs. Hirsch is scheduled to move today and that Lena should remember to see the woman before she left. So she makes her way over to the elevator and presses for Mrs. Hirsch’s floor. Just a quick pitstop on her way to the penthouse. She flicks through her mail—gala invitations, a postcard from Sam who’s vacationing in Argentina with her newest beau, a class schedule for the local health club—before stepping out into a hive of activity. She picks her way through the taped up boxes and detritus of a life well-lived, and pokes her head through her neighbor’s doorway. ‘Mrs. Hirsch? Can I help you with anything?’_   
_'Lena,’ cries the octogenarian. ‘How wonderful to see you. No, I think the removalists have it all sorted. They’ve been wonderful, and so quick too. Not a shabby looking bunch either.’ She winks at two men supporting a solid chest of drawers. That’s the last of the furniture, Mrs. Hirsch, they inform her with broad matching grins, sweat darkening their shirts._   
_Lena answers Mrs. Hirsch’s entreaties absently, scribbles her new address on the corner of a piece of mail—promises most certainly that she’ll make time to visit—and kisses her on both cheeks before stepping back into the elevator. As the doors close she spots a a third person exiting Mrs. Hirsch’s unit partly concealed by the stack of boxes they’re carrying. It’s a woman, Lena realizes, sleight of frame and blonde of hair. Her sleeves are rolled up but unlike her co-workers she’s barely broken a sweat._

* * *

Kara had heard of Earth, covered it as part of a module on developing civilizations and intergalactic modes of governance mandated of all Kryptonians of noble house. They made reference to its demographics, warfare, rate of destruction and projected demise. It bored her, as diplomacy classes often did, but there was a bright spot to be found in one of the upperclassmen, a brunette from the House of Una. They would spend time by one of the many holo-rivers, Krypton having been stripped of most of its natural resources by then.  
Kara thinks of the possibilities long after but finds it hard to summon regret. It was more than they ever could have hoped for, to hold hands in the ruins of a once prosperous city.

* * *

The governess announced her presence one gray morning, her face shrouded by a nimbus of fine, pale hair. She was not kind. But neither was she cruel, Lena realized one afternoon after coming home from school.  
The older woman took only a few seconds to assess the girl standing in the doorway before digging into her pockets to procure precisely four barrettes with which to tame the nest of raven hair. Lena was all of eleven years old when she found her chin gripped by a calloused forefinger and thumb, her face turned upwards and made to meet piercing blue eyes. No words were spoken but Lena understood from the curt nod that she had done well to stand up for herself against whatever it was that her classmates deemed punitive; mussed hair and a gouged cheek were small prices to pay for her pride. A dab of antiseptic and the latest journal on thermodynamics brightened her mood considerably.  
Later on she would find it in herself to forgive her adoptive parents for providing everything but the emotional fortitude to overcome that most grievous of losses. But as a child she wondered whether it was the maid or Lillian who cut the crusts off Alexander’s sandwiches, or if the latter ever kissed her brother’s forehead before retiring for the night. Perhaps that was the norm, and Lena’s mother the outlier for instigating the practice.

* * *

There is a folkstory Kara remembers being told as a child about the eternal waltz between Rao and Yuda, an allegorical tale about twin halves of a whole, about battle between public face and private persona. She remembers as she swaps out sweatpants and baggy tees for sundresses and cardigans. As she tries on tight oxford cloth button downs which bring out the color of her eyes and slacks cut just right, she recalls. There are matching heels and smart, sensible loafers thrifted from Goodwill to replace sneakers and flip flops. While the fresh wardrobe is a far cry from the dress robes she once wore emblazoned with the House of El crest, it’ll do for her newest job.  
'Kiera,’ Cat Grant snaps as she arches an imperious eyebrow. And so off Kara would go to fetch an astoundingly expensive bottle of sparkling water. ‘It’s what water would taste like if water could go bad,’ she’d smirked at Alex once. Other times it’s a coffee—black and without so much as a granule of sugar.   
CatCo was the day job, the public persona.  
The vigilante stuff, she kept to herself.  
Kara suspends herself in the slipstream the way she sometimes sees road cyclists do. She knows next to nothing about aerodynamics except for the basics. Trim weight. Wear spandex. Go fast.  
'It _chafes_.’ Kara informs Alex, who fiddles with the control panels in the training room.  
'Suck it up, buttercup.’ Alex flicks a small lever and suddenly the wind isn’t so gentle anymore.  
But Kara continues to hold herself in the air with ease, her hair whipping about her face. Alex switches the simulation off and Kara floats down next to her. She smirks, ‘I’m surprised it only took me months to get over years of repressed powers.’  
Alex narrows her eyes and procures a pocketknife out of nowhere and jams it into her sister’s ribs. The knife crumples like it’s made of paper.  
'Alex, I’m _bulletproof_.’  
'Yeah, but the suit isn’t.’ Alex mutters to herself when the spandex tears. She leans into her comms unit and yells for one of the fabric specialists. Kara spends the rest of the day being subjected to a lecture on the nuances of nanofibers and kevlar.

* * *

Lena felt it most acutely at events like these when she was surrounded by National City’s glitterati. The night was largely bereft of the children for whom they were raising funds and instead the hall was filled with beautiful men in impeccable tailoring and women slathered in jewelry, the teeter in their heels tamed by years of training. They counted her as one of them, she knew, her name and rank the price of admission.  
So she put on her version of Lex’s rich laugh, the one he often used to pry open cheque books just a little wider and got them signed within a minute of making his pitch, the coffers filling with more than the event chair knew what to do with. Buildings seemed destined to bear their name.   
So she moved from table to table blending in with guests and sampling drinks, but not food, fo she was never moved to hunger. Not the kind that could be sated by blinis and smoked canapes.  
Boredom constantly threatened to curb her momentum, and so she would scan the halls until she inevitably found it: one person she picked out from the crowd to admire, to be the subject of her curiosity and her focus, and to ground her throughout the tedious marathon of grazing, idle prattle and empty recounting of holidays across the oceans on either side of the mainland. These people always made the world sound so small, their wealth cordoning them off from the rest of humanity. She crafted her own for the night to be equally small, a dance between herself and an as-yet oblivious partner. One person, a mark, to admire first from afar. Sometimes they would notice and if they didn’t she would eventually make her intentions quite clear, her fingers playing against the sleeve of a velvet dinner jacket or delicate wrist encased in gold. Beautiful cufflinks, ornate craftsmanship—she’d tilt her head, blink slowly, and pitch her voice just so—for only after she’d appraised the external adornments did she feel entitled to compliment the person on whom they rested, the embellishments a prelude to the main act. It felt safer testing the waters that way first and if there was flash of recognition or a sparkle of permission in the eyes, of what was happening, of what was to come, then she would proceed to lay the groundwork for her gambit. As though it was the other party’s idea all along to engage her in conversation while the crowd ceases to mill about them and suddenly they are somewhere where they can carry out this waltz in private, and she the willing, submissive participant.  
For who would dare approach her first? If her name and her rank were the price of admission, so too were they a tithe. The price she paid for a lifetime of being moored on an island not of her own design. Everything about her name telegraphed distance: that outsiders would do well to keep it; the family which claimed her determined to maintain it.  
And so Lena felt it most acutely on nights like these when she is in a crush of bodies, the smell of vetiver and oud making her mouth water. She told herself what she wanted ultimately was not the skin underneath the garments, not the bodies they encased and would invariably find their way to her bed after the requisite, drunkenly eager fumbling, but for the person she deemed fit company even for just a few hours.   
Lena would look back later at this night and decide it was the deep cobalt of the woman’s dress, the way the stand collar clasped at the base of her throat, the way the sleeves were cut to reveal the slope of the woman’s shoulders and—her heart wrenched at the memory of having to wear a pair when the print in her textbooks shrunk year after year, the margins growing ever thinner and the paragraphs more dense, until she’d had corrective lens surgery—the way her finger constantly pushed a pair of glasses up the bridge of a patrician nose.   
Up reared her desire, humming and keen.

* * *

Kara gets appropriately tipsy before the gala. She groans to herself as she squeezes into the only dress she owns and does her hair up in a loose chignon: shit always happens at galas.  
She’s been on the society beat for the better part of a week as punishment for not dragging Kal up into Cat Grant’s office when he was ‘in town investigating’. It’s petty, but how was Kara to know? Cat was mainly responsible for the beat; she’d attend events, record them and her interviews in their entirety, but get someone else to transcribe and write the actual article. She foists it on Kara like an exquisite kind of torture. National City, home to the most rich assholes per capita.  
At least James Olsen is there to endure with her, his camera slung coolly over his shoulder, collar and tie already undone. Kara’s already drafted the article in her head—the who, what, when, where, why and how of the matter. Lena Luthor, hosting a fundraiser for a new wing of the polytechnic high school for the city’s most gifted, on balmy summer night in the hills overlooking downtown. Why? Because Lena Luthor is apparently a saint. How does she achieve canonization? By collecting other people’s money and matching it with L-Corp’s own funds. Billionaire Heiress Does Good, Makes Up For Brother’s Crimes.  
She wasn’t cleared for access to the woman herself so she settles for more available sources instead—an ecstatic principal, their science department head and the school’s top three students, but only briefly before they are ushered away by gushing parents. A schoolnight, they apologized sheepishly.  
It’s late and people have started to shuffle out of the vast hall. Olsen made his exit ages ago with a woman on each arm. Kara puts her recorder and notebook away. She nicks a crystal flute filled near to the brim with something bubbly, sharp and refreshing, and steps out onto the balcony—stares at the expanse of city before her, broken only by the sight of a bare back, the gentle flare of hips encased in silk. Calves taut and flexing.   
'I’m used to people staring.’ The woman doesn’t turn around. ‘Although I do prefer when I can stare right back.’  
Kara blinks. Makes her way to the ledge. The woman doesn’t turn until Kara is next to her, the corner of her lips quirking. 'You’re one of Cat Grant’s.’  
'How did you know?’  
'Your press pass.’ Kara fingers the tag clipped to her handbag. Of course. ‘Miss—‘  
'Danvers. Kara Danvers.’ She is lost in the delicate arch of Lena Luthor’s eyebrow.  
'Are you here to interview me, Ms. Danvers?’  
'Did you want to be interviewed?’ Kara already has what she needs but she wants to keep Lena talking, to keep that eyebrow arched and eyes directed at her, like she’s worthy of every ounce of Lena’s undivided curiosity.  
Lena frowns and scans the hall for her handlers. ‘Sure—I mean, honestly I’m just waiting for these stragglers so I can go home. I know it’s generally poor form for a host to leave before their guests do but these heels are _killing_ me.’ Kara eyes the straps around her ankles, logs the height of them, and doesn’t doubt Lena for a second. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’ She makes her way over to a nearby chair and removes one, then another with a sigh of relief. Kara thinks she may as well unzip her dress. Lena kicks the offending heels to the side. ‘Do your worst, Ms. Danvers.’  
It is at this precise moment when Lena’s handlers appear out of nowhere, whispering urgently into their lapels about a suspected bomb threat. ‘My quarterly assassination attempt,’ Lena rolls her eyes at Kara before she is ushered away.  
Kara makes herself scarce in the chaos. Her phone rings the moment she steps out onto the street. Even before she spies the caller ID, she makes her way into the alley she scoped and left her supplies in hours earlier. ‘Hey, Kal, you’ll never guess who I—wait, what? Alright, I’m coming, I’m coming.’ She changes outfits, tucks her phone into her boot and points herself in the direction of the Justice League headquarters.  
She takes one last, wistful look at the venue below. Shit always happens at galas.

* * *

_The removalists are a rowdy, companionable bunch tasked today with transporting the belongings of one Mrs. Hirsch of North Broadway. Kara whistles when the truck pulls to a stop in front of the nicest heritage building on a street filled end to end with them. She squints at the clipboard in her lap just to be sure. Mrs. Hirsch, widowed for the better part of three decades but no less inhibited by it, sounded way too kind on the phone to live amongst National City’s elite._   
_‘This is it, Danvers.’ Charlie shrugs next to her. ‘Let’s go.’_   
_The gentleman at the front desk—and Kara has to stifle a laugh because of course his name was ‘Winston’—directs them to the service elevator where the crew shuffles into the space, all playful jostling and bluster._   
_Kara remembers a time when it wasn’t so easy working at the removalist company. She wasn’t the only woman on the team but she knew what kind of impression she struck, all of five foot seven and lean muscle. They weren’t openly hostile but they weren’t warm either. She remembers her first day at other jobs, her first day at school, her first day on earth and her first day with the Danvers. Really, she’s been practicing all her life at forging new beginnings and she thinks this time won’t be any different. That she would adapt like she always did._   
_It all changes on a job when she picks up a three-tiered metal filing cabinet without so much as a grunt or call for help. Charlie was the first to offer to buy her a beer—platonic, he’d insisted—and soon after introduced her to his boyfriend._   
_When she picks up Mrs. Hirsch’s boxes and boxes of photo albums and bric-a-brac, she bends at the knees but it’s really just for show. It’s a tall enough stack that she can just see over the top and she turns politely away when she hears Mrs. Hirsch chatting with a neighbor._   
_In no time at all they’re back at the depot and clocked off when she offers to buy the boys a round but they’re already drunk on a good day’s work. Her phone buzzes and she fishes it out of her pocket. It’s Alex inviting her for dinner._   
_come meet my friend._   
_There’s a picture attached. Kara whistles under her breath._   
_she looks like someone who would put up with your shit._   
_hey, hey, HEY._

* * *

She lands a little lop-sided on the flight deck.  
'Hey, intern.’  
'Hey, Kal.' Kara grins as her cousin envelops her in a bear hug. They had a chat not too long ago about how it wasn't Kryptonian custom to be so affectionate, to be so free with emotional calls-and-response. We were a cold, proud people, she’d told Kal, and it was hard for us to open up. They'd made a vow there and then to honor every Kryptonian tradition but that.   
Kara's nose wrinkles. She slips into her native tongue. _'Is that new aftershave?'_  
 _'Date with Lois tonight.'_ Even with his back turned to her and even without diverting his attention from the console before him, Kara can hear the smile in his voice.   
_'Oh, yeah?’_  
 _'I'm making dinner. Bought candles and everything. Ma even taught me how to make pasta from scratch.'_  
 _'She know you're the Big Blue Boy Scout yet?'_ Kara flicks a piece of lint off her suit.  
Kal shakes his head. Again, even with his back turned, Kara doesn't need to see his face to know how he's feeling.  
She makes her way over to the desk they've managed to procure for her. The one that looks like it was made in the early '60s. There's a creaky swivel chair to match and, when she was first assigned to it, a dead lizard in the right-hand drawer. We're on a budget, Barry had shrugged before holding out his right hand. Kara deposited the shrivelled carcass gingerly into his open palm and before she could blink, Barry had zipped away and back. He’d also managed to find and squirt some hand sanitizer as Kara set her station up.  
'Oliver's still in the middle of setting up shell companies and shoring up some funds for us to use,' he scratched thoughtfully at his chin. 'We're also waiting on a federal grant. _That_ could take a while.'  
Kara grunted as she moved the steel desk to face the window instead.   
This is the job:  
There are multiple police scanners, radios and screens with news bulletins running at any given time and it takes every ounce of her skills to listen to each one, and just an ounce more to hone in on the one she needs.  
There are incident reports to fill out, scout logs to transcribe. There are both briefs and debriefs to attend to. There are drills to complete and fight simulations to undergo. She gets paired up with Barry first, then Kal, and then Oliver. Respectively they zip through Central City, glide over the gleaming rooftops of Metropolis and stalk the dim alleyways of Star City.  
She can sense J'onn in the skies above but says nothing of it.  
She's assigned to National City and its surrounds but she shares space patrol with Kal over the next few weeks because it's easy and, well, there's no point assigning it to the humans when they've no money to invest in space suits.   
She's entrusted to work dispatch sometimes and writes out mission briefs in staccato.  
Robbery. Mission District.  
Arson. Casualties. Bring backup.  
Diabolical criminal mastermind. Private militia. Matching costumes.  
The job requires her to rub shoulders with local law enforcement, but she draws the line at the photographs demanded by the public. Later on, she will learn to become more generous with her time, to linger at crime scenes, to banter with and work an audience. Later on, she will understand the value of a good public relations exercise. But for now she thinks there are more important things to do than to stand mannequin-like in the glare of flashing smartphones. For now, she ushers the post-incident flotsam and jetsam back to the humdrum of their lives.  
 _Nothing to see here, people, nothing at all. Just an alien demi-god and her side-hustle._  
She is the muscle and the sinew, the bone and the gristle, the blunt instrument used when there is a job to be done. She props up falling debris during particularly vicious earthquakes. She places herself between a hail of bullets and delicate human flesh. And even though she doesn't know it now, one day she will cease to be merely a tool. Later she will become, like Kal, a symbol.  
For a while she will hate it with every fibre of her being, and hate herself for bending to the will of a world demanding that she rise to the occasion. How dare she be ordinary, it interrogated her, how dare she try to blend in with the shadows? She will hate the burden because it was more suited to people like Kal, who thought they owed this world something.

* * *

Lena develops an immediate dislike for the new vigilante roaming the streets of her city. And it’s _her_ city, thank you very much—they’ve held enough ceremonies to commemorate her civic contributions, for her technology powering its grid, for her lobbying efforts having kept arthritic utility companies from gouging her citizens.  
Still she can’t help but be curious.  
This newcomer is an uncontrolled variable and it makes her itch. Or has she always lived in this city, biding her time and waiting to make an entrance? Supergirl, the news outlets are calling her. It’s just under the masthead of her morning paper in thick, blocky print—Supergirl. She devotes a few seconds of her precious time to skim the article before thumbing past it and into the finance section. She scoffs but there is no one in her apartment to hear it.  
It’s the morning of her final briefing before she embarks on a yearlong mission aboard the International Space Station. She’d approached NASA months before with a proposal to personally oversee upgrades to its internal systems and modules, and to probe nearby planets for the resources needed to establish outposts. Every day she isn’t on the station is a day wasted for moving the human race forward.  
The meeting itself is a formality at this point, and it goes by without a hitch. There are the requisite amount of faceless men in suits with their objections and motions to ensure they take credit for her achievements. It bores Lena, but she sees the forrest for the trees and gives them their small wins so they can feel good about themselves while she walks away with what she needs. And as she settles back at her office she’s just about ready, save for one thing.  
'Jess,’ she pages her assistant.  
'Ms. Luthor.’  
'What’s my next appointment?’ Lena knows that Jess knows her schedule by heart but her assistant takes a second anyway, as if to reassure Lena there is a limit to her devotion. Lena makes a note to give her a raise just before she leaves.  
'Session with Dr. Culber—‘  
'—ugh.’ But Lena takes a moment to reconsider. ‘Maybe I _should_ go see the kind doctor,’ she trails off.  
'Really?’ Jess doesn’t bother to dress her surprise.  
'No.’  
Sam Arias pulls double-duty once again as therapist and best friend. She takes Lena to her favorite Cuban place around the corner from her midtown apartment. As they walk in Lena is conscious of the gazes settling on them, appraising them over demitasse cups of thick, sweet coffee. But then Sam slips easily into Spanish and is fussed over by a matronly _abuela_ who conjures a feast before they’re even seated, and Lena forgives herself for projecting her anxieties and keeping her guard up.  
She tells Sam of the upcoming mission. ‘You’ll take care of L-Corp while I’m away, won’t you? I know Ruby’s the most important thing to you right now—‘  
Sam cuts her off as she crunches on plantain chips. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Just name a time and we’ll do the handover. She’s cute and all but being cooped up in that apartment is driving me nuts.’ She whips out her phone to show Lena photos of Ruby, all toothy grins and wild hair. Lena coos at all the right moments as she listens to Sam regale stories of pre-school and dinner table hijinks. ‘Best thing that’s ever happened to me.’  
'She’s lucky to have you. We both are,’ Lena reaches across the table and places her hand on Sam’s.  
 _Mija_ , the matronly abuela pauses next to Sam, thrusts an imperious chin towards Lena and says in a stage whisper, _tu novia?_  
Sam barks out a laugh because they did hook up a few times when they were younger. They couldn’t have avoided it even if they tried. _Ella era mi jefe alguna vez._  
 _Que es ella ahora?_  
 _Algo mejor_ —Lena’s picked up bits and pieces but startles a little when Sam stares at her with what is an unmistakably deep affection— _ella es una muy buena amiga._  
 _Entiendo._ But the abuela narrows her eyes anyway like she doesn’t quite mean it. Suddenly she brightens. _Si no la quieres, puedes darle el número de mi hija?_

* * *

'It’s just space patrol, no biggie. Up, up,’ Kara mutters to herself as she balances on the tips of her toes at the flight deck’s edge. ‘And away.’  
Crowds undulate until they resemble nothing more than ants, freeways stretch and city lights shrink until they’re nothing but pinpricks against drab concrete. It’s a casual, almost lazy, ascent and after a while she stops counting how many miles into the stratosphere she is. The air grows thinner and she can feel her lungs compensating for the changes. She’s never flown this high unaccompanied before—except for that little incident where she crash landed into her adopted planet all those years ago, and even then she had the benefit of a pod—and it makes her a little nervous.  
She keeps her eyes fastened to the ground below and tries not to think too hard about the vastness of space. Of that deep-black void, that dark vault where fire burns cold. Of the Phantom zone.  
Space smells to her like burnt steak, which makes her stomach grumble and helps take her mind off things. _Bless_.  
Eventually Kara locks onto her target. The International Space Station. She does a few laps around the modular attachments and admires their construction, however rudimentary when compared with the technology she grew up with. She spots the cupola and positions herself as close as she can to it, but as out of sight as she possibly can. No need to terrify the hardworking scientists inside.  
She closes her eyes and focuses on Earth, just like Kal taught her, going through it section by section and blocking everything else out. Focus, Kal insisted, otherwise you’re useless to anyone. _Focus._  
She stops, looks, listens. Listens to everything and everyone, section by section, on repeat.  
A hatch opens.  
Kara is in the middle of Chinese New Year celebrations in Singapore and Malaysia and in its bedlam she can hear nothing else.  
A voice, laced with anxiety throughout the static speaker feed, startles her. ‘Where’s your gear? How come you aren’t wearing any?’  
Kara looks down at her matte black suit then back up at her would-be rescuer. 'I don’t need any.’ Her inflection at the end makes it sound like a question rather than a definitive answer and she’s certain it doesn’t sound appropriately reassuring for someone who looks like they need it. ‘I’m, um, Superman’s cousin,’ Kara offers, another question-answer. ‘Supergirl.’  
The woman’s mouth hangs a fraction less open. In fact, her lips are drawn thin and tight. She isn’t aware it’s unnecessary, but she introduces herself anyway.   
'Luthor, like—‘  
'Yes.’  
Kara doesn’t see this translating into a stellar mission report. Does she include the part about how they’d first met at the fundraiser?  
'You’re Kryptonian too?’ Lena frowns. ‘I was under the impression Superman was the last of your species.’  
Kara grins weakly. Definitely keeping this one out of her logs.  
'Well, did you want to come inside?’ Lena’s not sure what the protocol is when it comes to plus-ones on the ISS manifest but it seems like the courteous thing to do to invite a stranger in from the cold. She’s almost certain her colleagues inside would enjoy having an alien demigod visit for tea.  
'Really?’ Kara’s smile is more genuine now. She knows for a fact the Russian delegation is comprised of horticulturalists growing heirloom potatoes to make space vodka. ‘I can’t though, I’m kind of on-duty. But thank you for the offer.’  
'Right.’  
'Superman’s away at the moment so I’m filling in for space patrol.’ Kara mentally slaps herself on the forehead as she explains. _Yeah, go ahead and tell Kal’s archenemy’s sister I’m the only Kryptonian around to protect earth right now._ She might as well redact the whole damned report at the rate she’s going.  
'I see,’ Lena says again. ‘Then perhaps another time.’


	4. Chapter 4

'What’s it like?’ Alex asks one day. Kara quirks an eyebrow. ‘Being up there,’ Alex gestures vaguely to the dotted tapestry above them.  
Kara doesn’t tell her about hanging out with Lena Luthor in space.  
Instead Kara tells Alex about the bracken in the undergrowth of forests the world over, of feeling the earth seething with life in beings great, small and microscopic; tells her of the gneiss formations just off the coast of Australia and of the algae that caresses its shores, tells her of red dirt roads with names like Lovejoy or Redgum; tells her of the music being played softly in bedrooms while it is raucous in town squares, and of fricative, uvular languages with melodies all their own; tells her of birth, death and rebirth, tells her of the depths of great sorrow and describes the heights of truest joy. Tells her of—Kara closes her eyes because the image has burnt itself into her retinas—tawny and gold where the sun touches, and blood red when it departs.  
Tells her of omnipotence and omniscience in equal measures, pervasive loneliness its only tithe. All the while Kara curses the fallibility of her memory in spite of all her otherworldly abilities for Krypton slips from her grasp with each passing day.

* * *

Kara slips into the simulation deck and floats up into the rafters. She counts the number of tiles in the drop ceiling to reach her stash—seven from the supporting pylon closest to the back door—and unwraps a candy bar. She munches on the chocolate covered wafers while Barry and Oliver duke it out.   
'Whoa, buddy.’ The speedster dodges a corrosive arrow. A chunk of padded floor hisses as it melts away. ‘I thought this was just for practice.’   
'It is.’ Oliver grunts as he vaults over makeshift obstacles and debris. ‘Gotta keep everyone sharp.’  
_Would you like a turn, little one?_ A dry voice echoes in Kara's head. _You do know how to play nicely with other children, do you not?_  
'Little one?' Kara bristles but only slightly. She scoots over to make room for J'onn who levitates himself next to her. He shakes his head at the candy bar Kara procures from her cache. _My apologies. It was my intention neither to insult nor condescend. It is a fact, however, that I truly am much older._  
Kara isn’t sure what to say to that so they watch the two men below them grapple in silence. 'Kal told me about you,’ she ventures after a little while. ‘He says you’re the last too.’  
J’onn doesn’t meet her eyes for a long time. Suddenly there’s an explosion—Oliver let loose a barrage of bomb arrows. Something spikes through Kara’s consciousness. Oliver and Barry spot them in the rafters. She turns to face the source of distress next to her. _He’s afraid of fire._  
'Sorry, J’onn,’ Oliver calls up. ‘Didn’t realize you were here.’ J’onn raises his hand in recognition.  
'And what else did your cousin say?'  
Kal had told her J’onn lived alone. That he had a wife and daughters once upon a time, and a father who loved him deeply. Whose life’s work involved leading their people to their salvation. That J’onn’s own work at the DEO consumed his every waking moment to fill a void they’d left. Kara wants to ask J’onn about what it’s like to have dealt with these things, what it feels like to still be struggling with the burden but instead she says simply:  
'That we're the same.'

* * *

They say the cleaner a cut, the faster it heals but hers was a jagged wound, slow to close. She picked often at the scab of it, excavating the tender flesh beneath.  
Kara was lonely.  
'We’re scheduled to make upgrades to the hydraulic arm. Would you like to assist?’ Lena asks while casually inspecting the outside of the main airlock. And of course Kara agrees. Yes, she can make deadline at CatCo, no worries.  
They fix the hydraulic arm. The Russian delegation offers their vodka. Later she is invited aboard one of the science aircrafts for stratosphere sampling. The Japanese contingent sits her down for their weekly tea ceremony. Later still she is able to offer her advice about the multi-spectral imaging device the Canadians are doing their best to recalibrate. After, they show her a zero gravity oven the Americans were sent along with a vacuum pack of cookie dough. But they aren’t for eating as she is later dismayed to find out. They politely ask if she could fly back with a small batch for NASA to test. She does.  
It feels indulgent making these trips back and forth like she’s abusing the inherent advantages of her biology. She can’t help but think she should be doing double the work to compensate for Kal still being away, but spending time with Lena and the rest of the crew—well, it felt kind of like being back at the science guild with a cadre of her peers. How could she not rejoice in the time spent with a woman whose most recent exchange went like this:  
'All this effort,’ Kara stared at Lena fiddling with the drill, ‘to replace batteries?’  
Lena mumbled something about the power grid upgrades being long overdue while she frowned at the absence of its telltale whir. She aligned the bit with the panel’s bolt and tried again.  
Kara tilted her head half in jest. 'Have you tried turning it on?’  
Lena had glowered only for a moment until she realized the drill was, in fact, switched off.  
Kara doubled over in laughter. _Delightful_.

* * *

_There’s no fairy godmother to whisk Lena away at the stroke of midnight and so she is left with the shambled remains of an excellent party. She is sober enough to clock the clouds overhead and marvel at how in less than a minute later she is jostling for space with her friends in the cramped sedan that is their rideshare. They slam the doors shut just in time for cloudbreak. She’s also sober enough to shoot her driver an apologetic look through the rearview mirror but drunk enough to not notice whether the woman acknowledges it._  
_The car winds through the arts district with its warehouse-cum-clubs and dark alleys, house music echoing in her ears. She tries not to think too hard about the negative effects of prolonged aural overexposure—it is her birthday after all. She laughs instead at the slurred voices and glassy eyes of her companions and feels, for a moment, that she’s kept the loneliness that’s been eating away at her for the past few months at bay. What better present could she have asked for?_  
_The window feels cool against her flushed cheek and when she pours herself out of the car she wonders if being thirty makes her too old to do this sort of thing anymore._

* * *

There is a benefit to routine, a comfort that comes with its rhythms. As an adult Kara made a habit of rising with the sun—her Kryptonian biology rendering an alarm largely useless—while whispering incantations to Rao and their host of divine beings. Being raised within the confines of Eliza’s pragmatism left little room for interest in theological pursuits, and she’d forgotten the old rituals until Kal took her to the fortress so she could reacquaint herself. It embarrassed her a little because she was supposed to know and to remember these things herself instead of relying on him to show her. Still she found it in herself to be thankful.  
But religious? No, she wasn’t that. Although there was something in the shade of spiritual the way she invoked Rao in the mornings while its rays warmed her face, something wholly reverent and not unlike the strange practices she’d observed on Earth. What did transubstantiation even _mean_?  
And so after rising early and going through the motions of composing oneself to face the day, Kara takes herself to work. Another routine. She was well and truly settled at CatCo and, while her beat left much to be desired, the position was enough to keep her finger on National City’s pulse. Then there were the extracurriculars: every night after work she would fly to temporary base the League set up near the wharf and take her post at the dispatch desk. The incidents, too, are routine.  
Until they aren’t.  
A heading catches her eye as she clicks through notifications from earlier in the evening. A NASA wire reads:  
_Lost contact with ISS Command Module Cynthus, bound for Keppler-16b. Civilian extraction required._  
It takes her less than a second to change into her suit and launch herself from the flight deck.  
Kara isn’t religious, no. But that doesn’t stop her from invoking Rao and their host of divine beings while hurtling through the dark expanse of space, this time with a touch less reverence.

* * *

'Begin entry sequence.’  
Lena knows from the moment she breaks through the exoplanet’s atmosphere that all was not quite well. She wrestles with the onboard computer for manual control as she descends entirely too quickly for her liking. The stretch of open desert before her seems as good a tarmac as any and, after managing to land without taking too much damage to the ship’s hull, she walks through the troubleshooting protocol. She’d lost contact with the ISS on entry which means they should have already notified the authorities and launched a rescue effort.  
The time Lena had spent up to that point on the ISS was even more regimented than that which she spent earthbound, but she didn’t mind. Discipline was required of everyone at the station with multiple experiments to tend to and ideas to cross-pollinate. The probe to the exoplanet was unexceptional and, she assured her colleagues, quite rudimentary. She’d logged more than enough hours in the simulations and trained as hard as any of them. That she’d designed the ship herself may have helped convince them she didn’t need a co-pilot.   
A Luthor striking out alone? Going against the grain? Not falling in line with the norm? Well, that was routine too. Now as Lena stares at the warning lights blazing across her control panels, she wonders if she should have listened a little more to their pleas. Theoretically someone should be coming to get her soon. But how soon?  
She tries the comms only to be greeted with the hiss and crackle of static. She tries again, ‘CM Cynthus to ISS. Acknowledge.’ The gauges and coolant levels seem to have stabilized but her thrusters were shot. Was it her design? Were there any critical components that could have failed, or that they didn’t test adequately for? She tries to recall how many rations were stowed on board. It was a small module, enough maybe for two but no more—a research vessel, a probe, first and foremost.  
Suddenly a series of sharp raps against the airlock interrupt her tally. A familiar face peers in.  
'We’ve got to stop meeting like this.’ Supergirl brushes dust off her matte black suit. Lena knows she should be grateful but something about the paleness in her rescuer’s complexion—caused by the flight, stress or something yet to be explained, she didn’t know—worries her.  
'Where’s the rest of your crew?’ Supergirl frowns as she scans the cabin.  
'I could ask the same of you. Isn’t it called the league for a reason? How did you know where to find me?’  
'I was working dispatch when I saw the wire. What happened, Lena? Are you hurt?’  
'Are _you_?’ Lena is distracted by the sudden shortness of breath and the glazed over look in the other woman’s eyes. She sways in place before propping herself against a wall. ‘Careful,’ Lena warns as the metal flexes under Supergirl’s shoulder.  
'I’m fine,’ she insists. ‘I’ve never flown this far out before. I just need to sit—‘  
Lena surges forward when Supergirl buckles at the knees. She curses under her breath—the Kryptonian is heavier than she looks.

* * *

Kara was always skeptical of Kal’s yearly galaxy hops. What did he even hope to find in that void? Their home was gone. She could feel it in her bones.   
He returned empty-handed for years until one day he knocked on her apartment door and took her in with solemn eyes. ‘For you,’ he said, folding her fingers around a slim, metalloid implement. Thin grooves formed their house crest. He relayed a set of instructions before wrapping her in a tight hug and taking flight. She held it in her fist all the way to the fortress and pondered the meaning of the set of his lips. Kelex buzzed upon her arrival but said nothing when he saw the tool and simply pointed to the central terminal.  
Kara’s hair is light where her mother’s is dark, the set of her jaw like her father’s. You are his daughter, she remembers being told by the community who raised her, through and through. She was told she possessed Alura’s astuteness, Zor-El’s passion. He encouraged her to great heights, while Alura rocked her to sleep whispering of how she was simply enough for the both of them. She recalls the notes of the Kryptonian lullaby—the one she hums to herself on nights when sleep eludes her—as the implement slots home.  
Turns out there are many things to miss when your entire world collapses in on itself. But Kara misses, most of all, dreaming in her native tongue. She thinks to herself sometimes in Kryptonian but the words she shapes in order to be understood still feel foreign, however many years later. She misses the weekly banquets her parents hosted for visiting dignitaries and being able to charm them with her repertoire of songs. As a child, toying with silverware and kicking shins under laden tables were permitted, encouraged even. There were so few of them back then. She derived from hovering in the kitchen hours before any given event and dipping her fingers in saucepans.  
Her havoc always went unpunished and in retrospect her parents spoiled her. It was to her detriment being their only child, the crowning jewel of their achievements.  
Kara misses being able to converse with her peers from the science guild, remembering them all as eager and self-assured—all laboring under the impression that their futures were cut and dry and as clear as the stars in the sky. Destiny manifest, her father whispered as he escorted her through the guild halls, was exemplified in their history as a wayfaring people. ‘You will have many journeys, _inah_ , but there will be one that defines you for the rest of your existence. You must prepare yourself as best you can.’  
Kara misses eavesdropping on her parents’ conversations, even as they grew more tense as she got older and included long stretches of silence between words.   
And on difficult days, the lonely homesick days, Kara misses being the perfect size to hide in the folds of Alura’s dress robes.  
There are days when she is forced to re-live the oppressive, deafening darkness of the Phantom Zone. Grief and mourning bring her to her knees. Hate blooms in place of unconditional love: why did her parents send her to this Rao-forsaken planet? Why make her bear the burden of walking a goddess among rabble?  
But even as she reminisces about the best parts of her home, it decays in her mind. Day by day it is replaced by memories of this would-be Eden. What a journey, she muses to her father’s spirit—what a legacy, to be the last daughter of Krypton.  
Kara’s hair is light where her mother’s is dark, the set of her jaw like her father’s.  
She sees it now as they stand before her.  
_Inah. It is good to see you alive and well._  
_We knew Sol’s third would keep you safe. That this star would nurture you where ours failed to._  
_Mother. Father._ Kara is moved but not to the point of tears. She knows better; they’re only approximations of two people she knew and loved. They stand in full regalia looking as they did the day she was launched out of Argo. They begin to walk around the fortress but never once take their eyes off her. _I’ve missed you._  
Alura moves closer. _You must have so many questions. We wrote this program to complement Jor-El’s gift to young Kal—we wanted you to have the same privilege of communing with your forebears._  
_I’ve missed you._ Kara repeats, louder this time, and her voice echoes against the fortress’ crystalline beams. She hopes against all hope that sentiment was encoded into their protocol instead of just all-consuming knowledge.   
Alura’s hologram pauses. _And we’ve missed you, inah._ Zor-El adds, _This should never have been your burden to shoulder. But you have done so with a grace beyond our imagining. We are proud of you. You are the very best of our house. Of our people._  
_It’s been so hard not having you around._  
_Do you feel lost still?_ They each place their hands on Kara’s shoulders. It should feel weightless. She reminds herself that they’ve been dead for the better part of two decades. She tells them yes, that there are still days when she feels like the path forward is as clear as her time in the Phantom Zone. That she wishes her roster of abilities included temporal control, rather than a freak biological reaction to the closest star. She says the days have been made easier by Alex and Eliza. J’onn. Kal and Lois. Lena. She isn’t alone anymore, she reassures them as much as she reassures herself.  
_You are never truly alone, inah._

* * *

_'You took me once to the shores of Dandahu—that was our last holiday before the school term started, before_ ieiu _had to adjudicate some important trial. She prepared for it all summer._  
_’You fed me silten._  
_’You promised we’d return._  
_’We never did.’_

* * *

Kara finds herself strapped into the co-pilot’s seat as she comes to. She unclasps buckles. Lena shrugs as she sets out the contents of a medical kit. ‘I didn’t want you hurting yourself.’  
'What happened? How long was I out for?’  
'About an hour. I was hoping you could tell me. I wanted to conduct a basic diagnostic but,’ Lena pauses and doesn’t meet the other woman’s eyes. ‘I didn’t think it was appropriate without your permission.’  
'Thank you.’ Kara gives a slow nod. Her head throbs fiercely.  
Lena offers a wry smile. ‘I also wasn’t sure where to begin. Kryptonians aren’t exactly in Gray’s Anatomy.’  
Kara remembers how Alex had panicked when she’d fallen out of a tree she’d dared Kara to climb. She’d bolted to the house and back, deaf to Kara’s laughter, returning with her knuckles white against a first aid kit. She was fine, Kara assured Alex, and she was a little sad she couldn’t have sustained at least a single scrape for her sister to patch up. Nothing could hurt her and the realization made her wish something could, if only to give Alex something to do.  
The twin suns outside reminded her of that summer day, although their own was never quite as red.   
'Exactly how far away are we from earth?’  
Lena tells her.  
Kara reaches for the closest instrument in Lena’s kit, a pair of stainless steel surgical clamps. She frowns when the metal refuses to warp in her grip. Lena looks on, curious. Kara sets it down and fixes her gaze on the panels making up the module’s walls, but they’re not at all transparent the way solid objects normally are when she focuses. She picks up the surgical clamps again and stares. Thrill builds as she feels something stirring behind her irises. Kara grits her teeth and redoubles her efforts, hoping to at least warm the damn thing up.   
Her vision goes dark.  
This time she wakes to Lena gently cupping her cheek. ‘Supergirl, are you okay?’  
This gives Kara an idea. ‘One more test,’ she wraps a hand around Lena’s wrist and pulls it away from her. She instructs, ‘Hit me.’  
'Excuse me?’  
'Slap me in the face. Throw a punch. Anything.’  
Lena looks more unsure the wider the grin spreads across the other woman’s face. ‘Come on, I can take it.’  
'That’s not—I’d rather keep my wrist intact.’  
'Trust me,’ she implores, her blue eyes wild.  
Lena lets out a breath.  
Kara hears the impact of skin against skin. Only later does she feel the sting. There was no way to describe the dull throb that bloomed into a sudden warmth across her cheek, as though pain was a memory buried deep and unearthed slowly from the recesses of her mind. There was no reference for it before, and now there was.  
'Oh my god. I am _so_ sorry.’  
'Don’t be,’ Kara smiles even as the split in her lip widens a little. She glides her tongue over the spot and tastes the iron tang of what she assumes is her own blood. ‘Beautiful technique.’  
'I’m sorry,’ Lena repeats. Of _course_ this is how years of Krav Maga would pay off.   
'Don’t worry about it. It was either that or the scalpel, and I thought you’d enjoy that way too much.’ Lena laughs weakly. The absence of her powers didn’t make Kara feel weak, not really, apart from a slight lethargy. ‘So weird,’ she observes her toes—Lena had taken the liberty of removing her boots earlier—and wiggles them one by one. ‘This is what being human feels like?’  
Lena regards her with a mix of amusement and worry. 'Welcome to my world.’  
'I can’t say it’s ever happened to me before but it does make getting out of here a little more complicated. Have you tried the comms system?’  
'First thing I did.’  
'I guess,’ Kara looks at the expanse of red dirt outside, ‘all we can do is wait.’

* * *

_‘Thanks again for lending me your car,’ Kara tells Alex when she comes over to drop off her keys._  
_And that’s how Kara starts driving for a rideshare service. Her phone lights up with an alert and she accepts the job with a lazy flick of her finger. She tries not to think about the DEO contract burning a hole in her nightstand._  
_She coasts down the crowded avenue, past the intersection with the broken lights, and hugs the sidewalk as she tries to spot her passenger. Kara squints at the photo on her phone and looks up at the woman who might be her: she has her nose to her phone and is surrounded by a group of girls, one of which has her chin nestled in the groove between her neck and shoulder. They sport ruddy faces and matching sashes. A celebration of some sort. The woman flags her down and Kara waves before she remembers the tint on the windows. She flashes her headlights instead._  
_They clamber in accompanied by the mingled smells of top-shelf liquor and cheap hot dogs from the corner stall. Kara’s stomach rumbles and she makes a note to stop somewhere for a snack; the night is comparatively young. She waits politely for everyone to fumble with their seatbelts before she wraps her hand around the gear shaft and peels away from the curb._  
_At the intersection she adjusts her baseball cap and lets herself watch the pedestrians cross, mildly irritated at the two men who stumble into the hood before drunkenly waving their apologies. After they arrive at their destination, a hotel downtown, she adjusts her grip on the steering wheel. The downpour only serves to accentuate the fougère drifting from her dark-haired passenger and she finds herself wishing it would linger long after she has left._

* * *

'Stand down, soldier.’ Sam chuckles as Jess launches herself clear out of her chair the moment she sees Sam walking out of Lena’s office. ‘I just wanted to thank you for your work today.’  
Some of the tension leaves Jess’s shoulders. ‘It’s nothing, Ms. Arias. Nothing I wouldn’t ordinarily do for Ms. Luthor.’  
Sam watches her eyes drift into the empty office behind her. ‘I miss her too,’ she confides. Eyeing the stack of files in Jess’s in-tray, she adds, ‘I’m sure those can wait until tomorrow. Come on, I’ve got a date to get ready for.’  
Jess looks slightly disappointed at having her workday cut short, then brightens when Sam reminds her, 'You’re babysitting.’  
It’s her first since having Ruby and she’s a little nervous. She’d been texting this woman on and off for the past week and she’d finally asked if Sam wanted to catch up over drinks after work. Sam had agreed—it was casual, the stakes were low—but she was more nervous than any other date she’d ever been on before. She’d mentioned in passing how she had a young daughter and the response was, well, more neutral than Sam would have liked. But she was getting ahead of herself; she hadn’t even met the woman in person yet. She’d suggested a dive bar downtown and Sam, while mildly surprised, agreed. The last thing she wanted after a long day of corporate kowtowing was another upscale brasserie with overly attentive waitstaff.  
I work in law enforcement, she explained after they’d clinked beers, and I don’t have a problem with kids if that’s what you’re worried about. The woman says this all while looking straight into Sam’s eyes. Her voice is pitched low but Sam can hear her clearly through the roaring speakers. ‘You’re lucky. I’ve always wanted my own.’  
'Would you like to see photos of her?’  
'Hell yeah, I would.’ She sets her beer down and leans forward.   
They gush over snaps of Ruby holding up her first knocked out baby tooth, over Ruby’s first day at kindergarten, over a video of Ruby singing to an audience of toys in her room. ‘She looks so much like you,’ the woman coos.  
'Yeah, I guess she does.’ Sam’s heart swells.  
The rest of the evening plays out the way Sam expected it to. The woman’s apartment is closer so they walk to it, swapping stories the whole time. ‘This is me,’ she says. ‘Well, thanks for a great evening. Maybe we could do this again sometime?’  
Sam nods. And when they kiss, Sam realizes she wants next time to be _right now_. She tilts her head meaningfully at the door.  
'Are you sure?’  
'Yes.’ Their mouths meet again. ‘I’m sure.’  
In no time at all, they’re submerged in darkness and feeling the slick of each other’s skin.  
Then there’s a knock at the door.  
'What the fuck,’ the woman groans into the crook of Sam’s neck. She fishes a shirt out of a drawer and hastily steps into a pair of shorts. The smartphone on her nightstand lights up with a notification. She scans it quickly and repeats, ‘What the fuck.’  
Sam knows from the cadence of the voices outside that something is wrong.  
‘I’m sorry.’ The woman rubs at her eyes as though whatever the news as that she’d received hadn’t quite sunk in. ‘Raincheck?’  
Sam nips at her earlobe. ‘Promise?’

* * *

The novelty of not having her powers wears off quickly. The lethargy she felt earlier transforms into a fatigue that sets her bones and makes her worry. She’d never been exposed to a red sun, much less two of them, for an extended period of time and it made her wonder as she lay resting in the co-pilot seat Lena had turned into a makeshift cot. She turned her thoughts over like the smooth stones she used to collect in the sound behind the Danvers house.  
She wonders if it was better that Kal had come first. That he became the first point of contact and built the frame of reference which shaped their adopted planet’s expectations. That he was raised by the wholesome midwestern couple who taught him to crawl, then walk, then run, only to discover flying came as easy after that. So did saving the world. Some caretaker she turned out to be, she thinks glumly.   
She wonders if her own upbringing was any better, remembers times when she wished she’d never met the Danvers, never had to manage the tension of playing second fiddle to Kal’s Superman.   
She sighs as she rises from the cot. She wasn’t sure she wanted to return now she was so far away from it all, but she knew staying here forever wasn’t an option. She panicked for a moment, wondering why it was so silent in the shuttle, until she saw Lena in an exosuit crouched outside.  
Kara started opening and closing compartments in search for a tool kit or spare parts.  
'What are you doing?’ Lena asks a few minutes later as she exits the decompression chamber and into the main space. A bag of soil samples and instruments is slung across her shoulders. There is a hiss as she pries the helmet from her head.   
'I want to boost our call signal,’ Kara announces as she dislodges panel after panel to expose wires and chipsets. ‘There’s nothing useful here.’  
'Still, they’re delicate pieces of technology. Maybe it’s best if you don’t tamper with them.’ Lena hears the other woman mutter under her breath. She catches words like ‘Krytpon’ and ‘not obsolete’ and rolls her eyes. She wrote the blueprints for this ship, one of the most advanced probe-class vessels private enterprise developed within the past decade and this _foreigner_ dismisses it like it isn’t a monumental piece of human engineering. Therein lay the rub, she supposed. It really was just a feat of human engineering, wholly unremarkable to a member of a sophisticated interplanetary-faring civilization.  
But it was still her ship. Lena sets the satchel on her workbench with more force than necessary. ‘Just be careful.’ She begins tagging and logging her samples as Supergirl finishes rewiring boards and screws the panels back into place.  
'I’m hungry,’ she declares.  
'There are rations in the back. Help yourself.’  
Kara makes a face as she reads the labels on the brown packets. ‘You know on Krypton—‘  
'—on Krypton you made everything out of nothing.’ Lena mutters darkly. A little soil spills onto her workbench.  
Kara ignores this and doesn’t remind Lena about her superhearing, even if it is a slightly muted version, or the principle of mass conservation. She wants to explain that on Krypton they’d developed the technology to make rations by sampling the native environment, taking only what they needed to synthesize basic provisions and nothing more. That on Krypton probes were always conducted in pairs at the very least, to avoid the exact situation they found themselves in. This particular shuttle, she notes, was designed to simply transport rather than shelter a skeleton crew long-term. There was just enough space to carry out the functions of a research mission but it offered little else in terms of defensive capabilities—just in case the planet being explored got a little hostile which, given the dust clouds coalescing menacingly in the distance, seemed likely. What weather systems did this exoplanet even exhibit?  
Kara redirects her attention back to the ration pack in her hands. There were just enough supplies for one person. She couldn’t afford to get carried away, for hers and Lena’s sake.  
'It’s been a long day,’ Lena says as she packs up her work. The samples look tidy in a padded case that she clicks shut. ‘I’m going to get some rest. I suggest you do the same.’  
Kara remains silent as Lena converts the pilot’s seat into a cot of her own and settles in. She watches the tension in Lena’s jaw give way to something softer as she succumbs to sleep.

* * *

_You should have taken it while you had the chance,_ Lex hisses in her ear. _It’s like a key and a lock—elementary, my dear sister. Slip it between the ribs and turn twice, see what comes out. Tissue, blood, spinal fluid. A confession. The answers to all of your questions. It’s all right there._  
Lena jerks awake.  
Even in her dreams her brother refused to leave her alone, although to be fair she’d never asked him to leave in the first place. She rubbed sleep from her eyes. Supergirl lay curled in her cot, blonde hair set alight by the rising suns.  
Days on the exoplanet were unsuitable for anyone hungry for color. They were long, in shades of red and nothing else, but it made the advent of night all the sweeter for something happened the moment the twin suns set: the sky turned a deep, rich purple as the orbs dipped along their slow trajectory just beyond the horizon before blinking out of sight.  
'I know we’re stranded,’ Lena announces once Supergirl is up and breakfasting on a ration pack. ‘But I need to keep getting work done.’  
Kara responds through a mouthful of soft, cake-like bread, ‘I’m coming with you.’  
Lena considers the Kryptonian for a moment. ‘I don’t know what it’ll be like out there with your diminished abilities but it’s probably best if you gear up too. There’s a spare exosuit in that compartment,’ she points as she begins assembling her kit.  
Kara crams the rest of the ration into her mouth and washes it down with a half cup of freeze dried coffee. It’ll do for now. She pads over to one of the back panels and inspects the pale synthetic fabrics so unlike her current outfit. She sighs in relief as she unclasps the hidden catch at her nape—she never could understand why Alex insisted on making it so tight. Probably because the idea of Kara’s discomfort was amusing.  
The cabin’s temperature control does nothing to quell the traitorous flush creeping up Lena’s neck and coloring her face as she hears the zip reach its foregone conclusion. She screws her eyes shut at the sound of fabric peeling back from skin.  
_It would be so easy, sis,_ she hears Lex groan in her head _. Like a hot knife through butter—right there between the shoulder blades. Don’t you want to know what’s underneath all that?_  
Lena’s eyes flash open. She takes a quick glance. Who wouldn’t? She could, if pressed, name every bone and corresponding muscle group that helped articulate Supergirl’s movements as she stepped into the exosuit. Even as its intricacies evade her, she is reminded of desire, of adolescent fumbling and an overabundance of teeth and spit, of hastily discarded clothing and the hot rush of probing, eager hands. She wanted to feel that flesh, those bones, flex beneath her own fingers and ask the other woman to move this way, then that, so she could see. See if the fine structure of her scapula might hide a pair of wings.  
She is reminded of pleasure, and of the brief, giddy attainment of it.  
Lena clears her throat. ‘You know,’ she stares at a spot in the ceiling as she talks. ‘I have enough instruments here to log a baseline for your functions. Maybe it’s information you’d like to take back to the League, or whoever it is that you work for. Maybe it’ll help them figure out why being this far away from earth is affecting you and your abilities this way.’  
Supergirl glances outside at the twin red suns. ‘Okay,’ she says out loud.  
'Really?’  
'Yeah,’ she steps in front of Lena, fully dressed now, and smiles amiably. ‘Why not?’  
_Why not? Because my brother’s serving multiple life sentences for trying to kill your only living family member. That and for a smattering of other crimes against humanity, which includes bugging the ever-living shit out of me in my head. That’s why._ But out loud Lena says, ‘Because I’m surprised you’d be willing to trust me when we barely even know each other.’  
Supergirl hitches her shoulders. ‘Then let’s.’ A smile plays at the corner of her mouth. ‘Get to know each other, I mean, but first let’s go collect some rocks. Or whatever it is you’re here for.’  
Lena laughs, ‘Alright. One more thing though,’ she reaches around to unlatch a Pelican case.   
'That’s the most expensive Lego set I’ve ever seen,’ Supergirl remarks as she watches Lena assemble a drone. ‘There might be a few mineral deposits worth sampling so it should help us scan the planet more efficiently. I can set it up so we can track it through the onboard computer, or control it manually if we have to.’ Lena slots the rotary blades in place. ‘Get ready to take a walk.’  
Kara could only make out so much for the planet during her swift descent. She sees it and all its terrible glory up close now. She imagines there was once water flowing through what looks like a dry riverbed and into an ocean gleaming like cut glass, pasture where there is now only a vast wasteland. Even through the polycarbonate layer shielding her eyes from the harshness of the atmosphere it is beautiful.  
It reminds her of Krypton.

* * *

There is no sound onboard the ship other than their voices and the faint blip of the scanner. Outside a dust storm rages. Kara can feel the faint, distant rumbling of thunder and she counts the seconds between them and stark flashes of white light.

* * *

'Supergirl—‘  
Kara winces. ‘That’s not my name.’  
Lena visibly softens as she turns to face the other woman. ‘What _is_ your name?’  
Kara hears the follow up question— _what’s your real name?_ Names are funny things, she ponders. Luthor, Lena: fruit from a tree so supposedly rotten and yet here she stood, having hurled herself as far away from it as possible. Names are important, Kara considers further, until one day they’re not. Supergirl: what kind of a name was that? She takes a deep breath. ‘My name is Kara. Kara Zor-El.’  
And then, ‘You may know me as Kara Danvers.’  
Suddenly the monitors light up in a dazzling array, the radar blips increase in frequency. Later, Lena decides. She will save her questions for later. For now she can only say breathlessly, ‘Put your suit on, Kara.’

* * *

‘Are you ready?’  
'Almost, just the helmet.’ There’s a quick hiss as the mechanism self-seals. ‘Ready.’  
'Can you hear me okay?’ Kara holds two thumbs up. The comms link glows a steady green. ‘Loud and clear.’  
Together they step outside of the shuttle. It’s more sand than loam. Their boots leave imprints as they begin their trek. Lena scans the tablet in her hand. ‘This way, Kara.’ A beat later she asks, ‘How are you feeling?’  
'These things are surprisingly heavy.’ Kara gestures to her life support pack.  
'They have to be if you want to stay alive out here.’  
There are patches where it’s like walking on a beach and others where the slate formations make for easier traversal. The twin suns shine through cirrus clouds. ‘There must be water on this exoplanet if the clouds look like that,’ Lena observes as she makes a note in her device.  
Kara always liked the rain. The smell that heralded its arrival, the petrichor after a solid downpour in National City. She’d delighted in studying smells accompanying weather systems when she arrived on earth—so different to Krypton’s own. Sometimes she would just stand by her apartment window and stare as the city cursed it, basked in its rarity. She liked the solid sheets of water, the light show. It rained on her first day of working for a rideshare service a few years ago. She’s almost certain if Lena let her hair down and shed the gravitas from her shoulders, they might be one and the same.  
They arrive at the base of a shallow cliff. Lena consults the tablet again. ‘We need to get to the cave up there. Can you climb?’  
'I think so. It doesn’t look too high from here.’  
Lena clips the device to her pack. ‘Come on.’ Together they scale the rock face using its slight incline to their advantage. Red dust coats Kara’s gloves as her fingers find purchase on whatever handholds the cliff yielded. She looks over to Lena who stares determinedly at the plateau above them. Kara grits her teeth as the pack weighs her down. They’re close. ‘Of all the times to lose my powers’, she groans. ‘Couldn’t you have designed a lighter pack?’  
'Less complaining, more climbing.’ Kara can hear the grin in Lena’s voice. ‘I might just beat you to it, _Supergirl_.’ Eventually they reach the top, breathing heavily and doubled over from the effort. Lena holds her palm up for a hi-five and Kara obliges.  
Without warning, the section of rock Lena stands on gives way. Even without her super speed, Kara is surprised at how quickly she throws her hand out for Lena to grab. ‘I’ve got you,’ she says breathlessly. Lena grips Kara’s forearm and yanks herself back from the edge.  
'Close call,’ she remarks as she watches the stone break into pieces along its descent. ‘Thanks.’ Kara nods. Droplets begin to create track marks on their visors. They look up in surprise. ‘Quick, let’s get inside.’  
'No, wait.’ Lena procures a sample bottle and holds it up to the sky. ‘This is good.’  
Kara can’t help but smile as the fluid is collected and stoppered away. ‘Glad you’re making the most of it.’ They squeeze into the cave, through an opening barely worthy of the name, and out of the downpour. Lena clears dust and moisture from her view and flicks her headlamp on.  
A bead of sweat trickles down Kara’s temple. Why was the pack so heavy? She finds a spot to sit and rest. She watches as Lena doesn’t appear to have any issues carrying the load while gathering more samples. Apart from Kara’s slightly labored breathing, they are both quiet.   
She had never been a talkative child and, at an age when it was all that children did, this marked her as different; preternaturally gifted with the ability to single out difference, the adolescents of Midvale High School were quick to make outcasts of anyone who didn’t engage in groupthink. And so Kara spent most of her recess and lunch periods perched on the steps of the gym at the outermost edge of the property picking at the snacks Eliza prepared for her. It stung, as rejections do whether one is thirteen or thirty, but she pitied the others for being spiteful of the other, the unfamiliar, the new and unvouched for stranger roaming their halls.  
Kara was silent in class, and therefore a target, mostly because she was still learning the nuances of the English language, her tongue sometimes failing to stay the last vestiges of her Kryptonian accent. She had to learn and unlearn a great many things, risking further ire the longer the process took. Idioms—she’d tear at her crustless sandwiches in frustration—were _stupid_. Who came up with those?  
Alex, well-versed in the injustices of high school, played the system to her advantage. Firstborn Alex—pretty and smart, and clever enough to disguise the latter by accentuating the one currency which bought you survival in high school—was saddled with Kara’s dead weight. Kara couldn’t well blame her sister for treating her the way she did during school hours: with callous disregard. Kara was a liability to Alex’s hard-won reputation, a fact they both knew and understood.  
But everything changed when Jeremiah died. Or was it after the fallout with Vicky Donahue that fundamentally altered something within her sister? Kara wasn’t sure. She was never brave enough to ask.  
'Can I help you with anything, Lena?’ But there’s no response. Kara chuckles as she is reminded of how Alex could grow so engrossed in her own labwork, how she relished shelving dossiers and manuals so she could suit up for the occasional surgical procedure. She smiles when she realizes her sister slings her coat on the same way Eliza and Jeremiah slung theirs.

* * *

Out of nowhere, Lena hears a blood curdling scream. She looks up from her work to find a cloud of dust and debris by the cave’s entrance. Her footfalls echo in the chamber. Something grabs at her heart and refuses to let go as she races towards the edge of the fresh pit, crawling on her belly to close in on the last few inches of its lip. Her head spins from the vertigo.  
The Kryptonian lies with her limbs at odd angles. But that isn’t what Lena focuses on. Instead her eyes drag over the gash, ugly and red and gaping, at her side. Kara is surrounded by seams of minerals exuding a sickly green glow.  
The stalagmite that pierced Kara is bathed in the same greenish hue.

* * *

Why did the Kryptonian have to be heavier than she looked? And how is it possible she’s come close to Lex’s goal of killing one without even trying?  
Lena’s legs give way before she can tuck Kara more comfortably into one of the seats, so she sinks them both onto the floor instead. She reaches up to rifle through the compartments for saline packets, gauze, a couple of fresh syringes and vials of anesthetic. Kara’s lips have taken on a bluish tinge. Lena needs to work quickly.  
'Hang on,’ she grits her teeth and props Kara’s head up with a spare blanket. She administers a dose of local anesthetic and debrides the gash—ugly and deep, with the skin surrounding it having taken on a sickly, necrotic shade of grey—of dirt and torn fibres from the exosuit. She reaches for another saline pack and takes a deep breath before beginning to suture the wound, her hands quivering as the needle sinks home each time.  
'Just one more, Kara.’ Lena sighs as she wipes sweat from her brow. ‘You’re doing great.’ She preps another vial before slipping the second syringe into it. It penetrates Kara’s skin just as easily and Lena watches, fascinated by the droplet of blood that blooms within the chamber.  
She glances at the compartment behind her containing more spare syringes, then at her bag of samples by the airlock.  
Her eyes drift toward Kara’s face, cheeks streaked with tear tracks and a grimace contorting its features. The Kryptonian is wreathed in blood-soaked gauze and empty plastic pouches.   
_She wouldn’t notice. Think of all the serums you could synthesize, the people you could help. First responders, volunteers, peacekeepers—_ Lex’s baritone took on a soft purr _—and the wars you could start just to make money off. It would be the easiest thing._  
_‘Enough,’_ Lena said out loud. But no one was there to hear her.

* * *

Lena picks out fresh dressings and a pair of scissors to cut away at the exosuit.  
'Hey,’ comes a weak voice from the cot. Lena turns around to find Kara conscious and wearing a half smile. ‘Are you okay?’  
'Am _I_ okay?’ Lena’s tone is incredulous. ‘You nearly died on me.’  
Kara feels for the dressings at her side. ‘How long have I been out?’  
'Just over forty-eight hours. I need to change that and you need to eat something or at least have some water, okay?’  
'Okay.’  
Lena can feel Kara’s eyes following her as she works. She doesn’t dare to meet them. ‘You’re good at that,’ Kara remarks. ‘Real steady hands.’  
Lena laughs softly. ‘You should have seen me the first time. I wasn’t sure you’d make it.’  
'Touch and go, huh?’  
Lena doesn’t look up from the wound.  
'Thank you.’  
'What on earth for?’  
Kara’s hand reaches to grasp at Lena’s only to have it batted away. ‘Infection control,’ Lena rebukes sternly, but she delights in the way it makes Kara laugh even as a few droplets of blood seep through her stitches from the effort.

* * *

'You’re probably wondering why I brought you here, of all places.’ Lena fingers the chamfered edge of the matte black box. The exoplanet was in one of its deathly silent moods which only made her worry for the motionless Kryptonian back on her ship. They are a long way from the lake by the house in the country full of people in possession of that firm constitution she doesn’t think she inherited. But she is here, and she is alive.  
‘I figured you might want to go on one last adventure.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I could have picked literally any other exoplanet but this one seemed cool and it kind of fit the “plot” and it isn’t Tatooine, okay—

**Author's Note:**

> come be my tumblr buddy @soyelgeneralissimo


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